


integrity, faith, and crocodile tears

by ProbablyVoldemort



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Dimension Travel, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Minor Character Death, Multiverse, Pining, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22611838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyVoldemort/pseuds/ProbablyVoldemort
Summary: Clarke was never supposed to end up in a different world with a different apocalypse.Zombies were never supposed to be a thing outside the old movies they'd had on the Ark.And Murphy was never supposed to be looking at her like that.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/John Murphy
Comments: 34
Kudos: 147
Collections: Chopped: Choose Your Own Adventure





	integrity, faith, and crocodile tears

**Author's Note:**

> What is this? Another round of Chopped? Hell yeah it is!
> 
> This round we got to pick our tropes and themes! So we're coming at you live with some:
> 
> Theme: Post Apocalyptic
> 
> Featuring:  
> \- Zombie AU  
> \- Parallel Universe  
> \- Character Reuniting With Someone They Thought Was Dead  
> \- Watching Someone Sleep While Being Super In Love With Them
> 
> Title is from Bad Liar by Imagine Dragons cause I was listening to that when I was trying to figure out a title lol
> 
> Please enjoy!

If there was one thing Clarke should have learned about Earth by now, it was that she should be ready for anything.

And she was. Mostly. She was ready for the attacks Azgeda kept threatening and ready for the two year renegotiations of their treaty with the Coalition set up for a week from now. She was ready, in a sense, for the inevitable moment when one of the delinquents came in with their arm half cut off, expecting her to be able to put them back together. She was ready for the people of the Ark to start coming down in a few months, for negotiating the lives at the Dropship out from under the Ark’s rule. She was ready for dealing with trades and bad winters, and arguing with Bellamy about how to deal with trades and bad winters.

All things considered, she was ready for a lot of things.

She was not, however, ready for the ground to disappear from beneath her feet and send her tumbling head over heels down a cliff.

She lay on her back for a few moments, groaning and staring up at the sky through the trees. She didn’t think she’d broken anything, which was good, and so was the fact that no one was—

“Shit!”

Clarke sighed and closed her eyes, rolling over and pushing herself onto her hands and knees so she could stand. Of course someone saw that. Of course.

“I’m alive!” the person said. His voice was familiar, though she couldn’t quite tell who it was yet. One of the hundred for sure, though. She couldn’t look up yet, though, because her vision was swimming a bit, a dull pain starting to grow from the back of her head.

But what a weird thing to say.

“Shouldn’t you be asking if I’m alive?” she huffed, rolling her neck as she stayed crouched down. Fuck, she was aching all over. And did she have a concussion? Either way, this was not great. 

“Right.” There was shifting. “Stand up slowly, hands in the air. No sudden movements or I’ll shoot.”

Okay, what?

Clarke followed his command, cursing herself internally for not bringing a gun with her, and slowly stood, hands raised in front of her.

Her eyes landed on Murphy a gun in his hands and trained on her head, and she sighed.

“Murphy, drop the gun. It’s me.”

She could pinpoint the exact moment that he recognized her by the way his jaw slackened. He paled, his grip wavering and the gun shaking.

“Clarke,” he breathed, and there was something in the way he said it that hit differently from how he usually spoke. 

He shook his head, steadied his grip on the gun and raised it again so it was trained back on her head.

“It’s not you,” he whispered, shaking his head again. “It can’t be you. You’re _dead_.” His voice broke on the word, the gun shaking again. “I killed you. The aim was perfect. I made sure. _I made sure, Clarke.”_ He was desperate now, almost in tears, and Clarke was so, so, _so_ confused. “You can’t be here.”

“I _am_ here,” she said, taking a tentative step towards him. She halted when the gun steadied, back on her head, and raised her hands higher. “I’m alive, Murphy. Okay? Put the gun down and we can talk.”

He shook his head again. “You got _bit_ , Clarke,” he told her, doing nothing to clear up anything. “On the arm. I couldn’t stop it in time. You’re dead. You’re one of them. You—”

“I didn’t get bit,” she told him. This was something she could prove, as long as the bite had been recent enough and deep enough to leave a mark. Why he was so worried about her being bit by something, she didn’t know, but this was something she could handle. “I’m going to push up my sleeves, okay? Don’t shoot.”

She watched him watch her as she moved her hands to the opposite arms, pushing her sleeves up past her elbows. There was some sort of desperate hope in his eyes, another thing she couldn’t figure out. She’d definitely hit her head when she fell. Maybe that’s why nothing was making sense.

“See?” she said, holding her arms out, twisting them around as Murphy’s eyes roved over them. “No bite.”

He watched her for a few more moments, the gun already lowering as he seemed to fight with himself.

And then he was dropping it, the gun hitting the mossy ground with a soft thump, and he was running at her.

Clarke was ready for a lot of things that came with being on Earth.

Whatever the fuck was going on right now was not one of them.

And neither was hugging Murphy back as he sobbed into her neck, his arms wrapped almost too tightly around her.

“You’re alive,” he whispered, and she felt his lips press against her skin. “You’re really alive.”

“I’m really alive,” she confirmed, running a hand up and down his spine. She could do this. She could comfort Murphy for whatever the fuck was happening—bad jobi nuts? Was that what this was?—and once he’d calmed down, she could get some answers.

It took a few minutes, but eventually he stopped shaking with sobs. Murphy pulled back just enough to look at her, one arm still holding her tightly against him as the other rose so he could brush his fingers over her cheek.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispered, his eyes searching hers. His were too clear for this to be jobi nuts. What was it?

He leaned in then, capturing her lips in a soft, sweet kiss.

Clarke was too stunned to do anything more than just stand there. Nothing was making sense, least of all the fact that Murphy apparently thought she was dead and was now kissing her.

He pulled back after a moment, giving her a watery smile.

“I love you,” he told her, punctuating it with another kiss. “I love you, Clarke. So fucking much. I can’t lose you again.”

Clarke was pretty sure this was the point where she should say that she loved him, too, except, well, she liked Murphy well enough. But love?

What?

She was saved from having to answer by a rustling in the bushes, and then Murphy was pulling out of her grip and grabbing another gun from his waistline. She barely had a chance to glimpse the person stumbling into the clearing before Murphy had fired a shot, the figure dropping to the ground.

“Murphy, what the fuck?” she snapped, pushing past him. Hopefully he hadn’t actually killed this person, whoever they were. “We’re supposed to renegotiate the treaty. You can’t just fucking kill people.”

Murphy huffed behind her. “They aren’t people anymore,” he told her. “You know that.”

Clarke was about to snap back that she didn’t know that, what the fuck was he talking about, but then she froze, the words catching in her throat as she stared down at the body.

The half-decayed body. The body that looked like it’d been dead for months already. The body that hadn’t even had enough life left in it to bleed from the hole Murphy had put between its eyes.

“What the fuck,” she whispered, and then Murphy was shoving a gun into her hands.

“Let’s get moving,” he told her, and she just stared at him until he sighed. “Fuck. You hit your head, didn’t you?” She nodded slowly, and he sighed again, cocking his gun and jerking his head towards the forest. “There’ll be more of them, and they definitely just heard that gunshot. I’m not losing you again, Clarke.”

There was something desperate in his eyes and none of this made sense, so she found herself following behind him into the forest.

“The Dropship’s the other way,” she told him, scanning the trees for anymore not-dead people. _Zombies_ , her brain supplied, but she shoved the word away. There was no way there were actual zombies. That wasn’t something that was allowed to happen.

Murphy glanced over at her, frowning. “The what?”

“The Dropship,” she repeated, still following him. “You know. Camp. Home. We’re going the wrong way.”

Murphy turned away again, eyes scanning for threats. “Home’s too far,” he told her, which wasn’t true. They were maybe thirty minutes from camp, if that. “There’s a bunker this way. We can hide out for the night and start back tomorrow.”

Maybe it was because she was almost definitely concussed. Maybe it was because everything was so fucking confusing. Maybe it was because Murphy had just shot a fucking zombie—fuck, she wasn’t going to use that word—in the head like it wasn’t his first time doing it. Maybe some part of her had already figured out what was happening.

Whatever the reason, she didn’t insist they turn around and head for camp and instead followed behind Murphy for whatever bunker they were looking for.

The bunker was, admittedly, closer than the Dropship. They reached it after only ten minutes or so, and then she was following Murphy down inside of it.

Like with the zombie—fuck. No. Already slightly dead person—he’d shot, Murphy seemed to know his way around this bunker, too, and lit candles.

For her part, Clarke just stood under the hatch, feeling useless, kinda dizzy, and a little bit nauseated. She did _not_ have time to be concussed.

“Come here,” Murphy said, and she let him lead her to a bed, sitting down on its edge. He pulled a chair over and sat in front of her. “Where’d you hit it?”

“The back.” Clarke sighed as his hands moved to her head, brushing gently through her hair in search of the bump. “It’s probably fine, Murphy. You don’t have to—”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” he asked, his hands pausing as he frowned at her.

She frowned back. “It’s your name?”

His frown deepened, and his hands continued to move. “No one calls me Murphy,” he told her. “You’ve never called me that.”

Clarke sighed, adding that to the list of things that weren’t making any sense. Hadn’t Murphy threatened to float anyone who called him John in the third grade? Whatever. Names were slightly lower in importance on the list of confusing things than, you know, the not-so-dead dead people roaming around.

Murphy’s hand found the spot, and Clarke hissed in pain as his fingers brushed against what was definitely a large goose egg on the back of her head. His hand moved immediately, cupping her cheek instead, his thumb brushing over her skin.

“Let me check your eyes,” he said. There was something in the way he was looking at her that made her breath catch in her throat, and all she could do was nod.

The flashlight he shone in her eyes burned, but it was over quickly and then he was leaning back in his chair and sighing.

“I think you have a concussion.” Clarke huffed and leaned back on her hands. Murphy offered her a tight smile. “We can stay here tonight and then head back in the morning and you can get checked out properly.” His smile wavered. “But you’re alive.”

There it was again. The suggestion that she should be dead.

Why did he think she should be dead?

“Murphy,” she started, and then quickly corrected herself as his brows furrowed. “ _John_. Why did you think I was dead?”

Murphy’s—John’s—face fell. His eyes dropped from her face to his hands, twisting them around each other. “You don’t remember?” he asked, quietly, too quietly.

“No.”

She watched him swallow, watched him struggle with whatever he was going to say.

“You got bit,” he said, like he’d said before, like that was all there was too it. “There were too many of them, and, by the time we got them all, you’d been bit.”

“Bit,” she repeated. “Bit by a…”

“Zombie.”

With one word, everything Clarke had been trying to ignore was real. There were zombies. Of course there were fucking zombies now. Of fucking course.

The question still remained as to how Mur—John—knew about it and how to deal with it, but one problem at a time.

“By a zombie,” she repeated. “Right. So then I, what? Turned into one?”

John shook his head, lifting it enough to look at her with watery eyes. “We made a deal, remember?” he said, his face contorting with pain. “We die ourselves.” He took a shaky breath, releasing his hands to drag one through his hair. “You told me you loved me, and I told you the same. And then I shot you in the head.”

Clarke didn’t remember any of that. Maybe she’d just hit her head too hard, but she was pretty sure she hadn’t died recently. Forgetting zombies because of a concussion? Sure. She could buy it. Forgetting dying? That was a little more unbelievable.

And forgetting being in love with a Murphy who didn’t go by Murphy? She was pretty sure that Murphy hadn’t been in love with her before she’d hit her head.

The zombies and the dying and the Murphy being in love with her were all adding up to a picture she was starting to dread putting together.

“I need to ask you something,” she said, and John looked up at her again, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s might sound weird and crazy, but I need you to answer me.” He nodded, and she took a deep breath. “How long have you been back on the ground, John?”

He opened his mouth then closed it again, frowning at her. “What?”

“The ground,” she repeated, even though she already had her answer. “How long has it been since the Ark sent us down to see if the ground was survivable?”

The confusion on his face was all the answer she needed, and Clarke swallowed as John floundered for an answer.

“I don’t understand,” he finally settled on. “The ground’s always been survivable. We’ve never left the ground.”

Clarke nodded. She took a deep breath and leaned forward, taking his hands in hers.

“John,” she said, her voice low. “I’m gonna tell you something and you’re not gonna want to hear it, but I need you to listen to me. Okay?” He nodded slowly, squeezing her hands. “I don’t remember growing up on the ground. I don’t remember zombies or our pact to die as ourselves. I don’t remember anything of this. Because I’m not…” She trailed off, steeling herself. 

“I’m not your Clarke.”

Murphy was shaking his head, getting ready to object, but Clarke squeezed his hands.

“Listen to me,” she pleaded. She didn’t know if it was because he’d noticed something was different, too, but didn’t want to say, or because she was wearing the face of someone he’d loved and had literally just had to watch die that morning, but he stayed quiet. “I’m not her, John. I don’t remember any of that. I remember growing up on a space station. I don’t remember when I met my version of you, but we went to school together. You go by Murphy. We got sent down with ninety nine other teenagers to see if the ground was survivable.”

She was silent for a moment, watching him struggle with what she’d told him.

“That’s what I remember,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, John. Your Clarke’s still dead.”

It took a few moments, and then he was crumbling.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “ _No_.”

Clarke let go of his hands, tugging him against her and whispering that she was sorry again and again as he sobbed against her and pleaded with her to be wrong. Until today, Clarke had never imagined having to deal with Murphy breaking down. She hadn’t really thought that he could.

But she held him and tried to comfort him. Because she might be the one who was stuck in an alternate universe someone—unless John was in her universe and had brought the zombie with him, which seemed a lot less likely—but he was the one who’d lost someone he loved today and then thought he had her back only for that hope to be ripped from him again.

John wasn’t crying anymore and Clarke’s head was pounding, but she didn’t move, still just stroking her fingers up and down his back, humming under her breath.

“Are you sure?” he whispered suddenly, pulling back so he could look at her. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen, his hands still gripping her jacket.

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

His eyes dropped and he nodded back, once, and then he was gone, moving through the bunker and into another room Clarke hadn’t noticed, shutting the door behind him.

Clarke sighed, and moved to lay down, pressing her hands against her eyes. There was so much she had to do. She had to figure out whether she was right that they were in his universe not hers. Then she had to figure out how to get back to hers.

But how had she even gotten here in the first place?

Maybe she’d wake up in the morning and it would all be a dream. She could find Murphy at breakfast and be like, “Hey, I had a dream last night that you were in love with me,” and he’d be like, “Hate to break it to you, Griffin, but that’ll _only_ happen in your dreams,” and then they’d never speak of it again and she’d forget about all of this.

She didn’t think there was much of a chance of that happening, but she could hope.

 _Fuck_ , her head hurt. Maybe she’d just take a little nap while John was doing whatever he was doing in the other room. Everything would be better when she woke up.

Clarke woke with a pounding in her head and something warm wrapped around her. _Fuck_. She couldn’t even remember drinking last night, but clearly she’d drank enough to be hungover _and_ forget she’d brought someone back to her tent with her.

She blinked blearily, trying to clear her head enough to see who exactly had joined her in her bed, but all she managed to see in the semi-dark was a soft smile.

“Good morning,” he whispered, and at least she knew it was a he now. Not that that cleared things up much.

And then he was kissing her, long and sweet, and her breath probably stank like whatever moonshine Monty and Jasper had fed to her the night before but she couldn’t really find it in herself to care. Whoever this was, _fuck_ he was a good kisser. How much had they kissed last night for him to know exactly how she likes it?

She let him kiss her and kissed him back with just as much enthusiasm, let herself inch closer and closer, until his hand dug into her hair and she let out a gasp of pain.

“Shit,” John whispered, pulling away, his hands brushing over her cheek. “Shit, Clarke. I’m so sorry.”

And suddenly everything from the day before was rushing back. Falling and hitting her head. Zombies. Murphy-but-not-Murphy. Alternate universes.

Fuck.

Something on her face must’ve betrayed her thoughts, because John’s hand was dropping from her cheek.

“Tell me yesterday was a dream,” he whispered.

Clarke swallowed heavily. It’d be easier for him if she could lie. She could give him a few more moments with the girl he loved and give him a chance to say a proper goodbye.

But even if Clarke had enough information on this other Clarke’s life to be able to pull it off, she’d still be leaving. She’d still be trying to find a way back to her own universe and she’d still be leaving him to mourn her again.

So she shook her head, turning away from him as his face fell.

It didn’t take long before they were heading out, Clarke armed with a gun and an ax that John had pulled from a backpack she hadn’t noticed him wearing the day before and he with the other gun and a baseball bat full of nails. Apparently it was preferable to kill zombies quietly. Gun shots just attracted more of them.

Clarke insisted they head for the Dropship first. All signs were pointing to her being in the wrong universe, not him, but she had to make sure.

Where the camp she’d helped build over the last two years should’ve been, there was only endless forest—and one lone zombie that was the unfortunate recipient of Clarke’s frustrations.

“Clarke,” John said after a while, his hand landing gently on her shoulder. “It’s dead. We should keep going.”

Clarke stared down at the mess of what had once been almost human looking, now nothing more than a hacked up pile of meat. Her ax was stained red and her arms were splattered with zombie guts, and she let John lead her away.

The walk to the Arkadian safe zone wasn’t too long, only a couple hours, and they spent the time planning.

She’d pretend to be this universe’s Clarke. It was easier than explaining to everyone that she was from an alternate universe. The bump on her head and the concussion would explain her apparent memory loss, and John spent the walk filling her in on what would be most important for her to know.

Clarke only half listened, her head pounding too much for her to really pay attention.

And there was the other, unspoken part of the plan that was capturing what little focus she had.

The part where she was going to have to pretend she was in love with John.

“John,” she said, interrupting whatever he was talking about. Maybe if she forced herself to listen to him, she wouldn’t be able to stress over whether she could convince people who’d known John and the other Clarke their whole lives that she was both the Clarke they thought she was _and_ in love with John.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, and she offered him a tight smile.

“How did the apocalypse start?” she asked. “I mean, the whole zombie thing. In my world, it was bombs and radiation and everyone who wasn’t in bunkers or space died.”

John sighed and turned back around, focusing on the path as they continued their trek.

“We were six when the virus started,” he said. “The first round was spreading through fluids, I think.” He laughed, harsh. “I guess it still is now, too. Saliva to the bloodstream.

“But the first wave was just sickness. You got sick. Fever. Trouble breathing. Your heart beat too fast. No one gets that strain anymore, and it was so long ago I don’t really remember the specifics, but it basically hit all your systems at once. It was brutal and it sucked.”

He paused as he climbed over a log, and Clarke let him pull her over after him.

“And then you started hemorrhaging,” he continued, staring at her for a moment before starting to walk again. “That stage killed almost everyone that reached it, even if they got medical help. They were working on a vaccine or a cure or something, but it all happened too fast. They died, and then, within an hour, they were still gone, but their bodies were alive again.”

Clarke swallowed. “Zombies.”

“Yeah.” 

John paused again, and Clarke thought that maybe that was the end of the story. But then he started again, voice lower.

“I got sick.” He said it like it was just a fact, like he was admitting he’d gotten a flu once, not a sickness that turns people into fucking zombies. “Passed it onto my dad before I started showing symptoms. He died and then un-died, but I didn’t.

“I spent eighteen months in quarantine, just in case. There weren’t many of us that survived it, and by that point, the world had already gotten fucked up enough that it was hard to share information between safe zones even if there had been any information to share.”

Clarke tried to picture it. The bombs had happened long before she’d been born, but there was enough information that she could paint a picture of the world tearing itself apart.

This was different. This was people dying, ordinary people causing the destruction of this universe’s civilization, not a handful of billionaires and government officials deciding the fate of the planet for them.

And John had been caught up in it all, sick and then not, kept alone in a room when he was so young and probably so scared.

“They studied me,” he continued, and Clarke forced herself to focus on him again. “Did tests. Tried to figure out if there was something in me that could make a cure or a vaccine or something.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Your mom was one of the doctors working on it. That’s where I met you.”

He smiled, soft, remembering a time from so long ago. Clarke smiled back, and he looked forward again.

“You were with me every day,” he said, so quiet it was almost a whisper. “There was a glass wall between us, but you were there. We played games and read stories and just talked.”

He sighed. “And I’ve been in love with you ever since.”

Clarke swallowed, fiddling with the ax in her grip. What was she supposed to say to that? _I’m sorry I’m here and not her? I’m sorry the virus you survived is what made you have to kill me? I’m sorry I’m not in love with you?_

She didn’t say anything, following behind him in silence.

“So are you immune, then?” she asked after a while. “Since you were already sick?”

John shrugged, didn’t turn around. “No idea,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s like chicken pox and you’re immune after getting it once. Maybe it’s not and I could get bit and go zombie. Maybe once I die, I’ll turn even if I don’t get bit. I have no idea. It’s not exactly something you can test.”

Clarke supposed that that was true. Couldn’t go around testing something that could kill your patients when you had such a limited number to begin with.

“How’s the head?” John asked, changing the subject, and Clarke shrugged at him when he glanced over his shoulder.

“Not great.”

He nodded, offered her half a smile. “Your mom can check you out when we get back,” he said. “After she kills me for having you out of the safe zone longer than we said.”

Clarke froze, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at him. “My mom will be there?” she whispered.

John paused and frowned at her. “Yeah,” he said. “She runs the research and medical department. Is she…not there in your universe?”

Clarke shook her head. “Still in space,” she said. “She’ll be down in a few months, but I haven’t seen her in years.”

“Well, you’ll get to see her today,” John said, smiling at her, and Clarke grinned back.

The Arkadian safe zone was about what Clarke would expect from a safe zone in a zombie apocalypse. There were high walls topped with barbed wire, guard rotations, and a fortified gate.

They let them in without much fuss. They cleaned off her ax and then dropped their weapons at a room near the gate, and John made them promise to not let anyone else use his bat.

Beyond the wall, the safe zone was nothing like Clarke had seen in the few zombie movies that’d made it to the Ark. It just looked like a city. There were buildings and streetlights and kids playing in a park.

It looked like the world before the bombs.

“This way,” John said, grabbing her arm and leading her down a street.

Clarke tried to school her features—she shouldn’t look like she’d never seen this place before, not if she was going to pass as the other Clarke—and kept her eyes on the pavement below her feet as she walked.

“You’re back late.”

Her breath caught in her throat at the words, and she glanced up slowly.

There, leaning against the side of a building, was someone she’d never see again.

But he was here and he was alive.

“Wells?” she whispered, like maybe it wasn’t him, and then she was leaping forward, wrapping her arms around him.

“Nice to see you, too,” he laughed, patting her on the back. “What happened out there?”

“Clarke hit her head,” John supplied, and Clarke conceded that maybe hugging her friend like he’d been dead for two years wasn’t the other Clarke’s usual reaction to seeing him. “I think she’s concussed. Taking her to see Abby.”

Someone clicked their tongue, and Clarke pulled away, thinking maybe she’d been hugging Wells for too long, and watched Raven emerge from the door next to them.

“You’re a day late _and_ you got her concussed?” she said, grinning as she shook her head. “Nice knowing you, John.”

John flipped her off and tugged on Clarke’s arm, urging her down the street towards where her mom supposedly was.

“Hope your head’s okay!” Raven called after them.

“What was that?” John asked, voice low.

“He died in my universe,” she said, and John swallowed.

Seeing her mom went about the same as seeing Wells, with Clarke hugging her tightly and John managing to write it off as her being concussed. Which was confirmed after a quick exam.

“Her memory seems off,” John told Abby, and Clarke stayed quiet, letting him speak for her. The lights in the exam room were killing her head even more, and she was ready to be done with this.

“Probably from the hit to her head,” Abby said, and Clarke was paying attention enough to be amazed that their plan was actually working. “It should come back.”

They talked a little more, and then John was helping her up again, leading her out of the room. Clarke wasn’t sure how they got there, but they were suddenly outside an apartment, and John was fishing keys from his pocket.

The apartment was small. The walls were decorated in artwork that Clarke could tell just from looking was her own. There was a couch and a TV and a small kitchen, photographs of herself and John and people she both knew and didn’t from her universe scattered around.

It was a home. It was their home, John and the other Clarke.

He lead her into a bedroom, their bedroom, and pulled some pyjamas from a drawer for her to change into.

“I’ll start looking into what I can find on alternate universes,” he told her, facing away as she changed. She was pretty sure he’d seen the other her naked, that there wouldn’t be anything more than a few scars that he hadn’t seen before, but the gesture was nice. “Your mom says you should rest for a few weeks, but I’ll see what I can find.”

They fell into a routine. Clarke slept or just lay in the room with the lights off. Sometimes one of their friends would come visit, or John would do his research in the bed beside her instead of the other room.

At some point, John would join her in bed, wrapping around her in his sleep, and Clarke would wake tangled in him.

Her mom would show up occasionally, checking her over.

She ventured out of the apartment for the first time two weeks later, after her head was deemed good enough for light and Bellamy had invited everyone around for a dinner party.

Clarke could honestly say that dinner parties weren’t exactly a thing on her Earth, but anything sounded better than spending another day in the dark.

Dinner parties were loud, she found out. John abandoned her inside the door in favour of shoving his way into the kitchen and yelling about fixing whatever disaster Bellamy had created for dinner, and Clarke was left on her own.

Everyone was the same but different. A life spent on the ground was different than one spent in space, even if everyone was surviving an apocalypse either way.

They were all very considerate of her “memory issues,” which Clarke was beyond thankful for, even if Jasper and Octavia were just as eager to make up complete lies for her to believe, which someone else tended to correct.

“What were you doing out there an extra day?” Harper asked, and Clarke shrugged.

“Fought some zombies and then I fell down a cliff and hit my head,” she said. Not entirely a lie. “Once we’d figured out I would be okay, it was too late to walk back, so we spent the night in a bunker.”

“Hear that, Monty?” Jasper asked, elbowing his friend and wiggling his eyebrows at Clarke. “They _spent the night in a bunker._ You know what that means.”

Clarke laughed with the others, even though Jasper was completely off the mark about what had gone down in that bunker. Maybe if she’d been the other Clarke, but she wasn’t. This wasn’t her life, as nice as it was, and she needed to keep that in mind.

John dropped down on the couch next to her, pressing a kiss to the side of her head.

“No one appreciates me,” he sighed, and Raven snorted.

“No one appreciates you taking over everything,” she countered, and John flipped her off.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have to take over everything if Bellamy didn’t burn the fucking dinner,” he said, almost yelling by the end to make sure Bellamy could hear him from the kitchen.

“Fuck off, John!”

“Clarke,” Wells said, face serious as he leaned over the coffee table. “How does it feel knowing your boyfriend will one day leave you for Bellamy Blake?”

“Fuck off, Wells,” John said, pulling a pillow out from under him and throwing at the other man. “Bellamy wishes he could have me.”

Clarke laughed again, soaking in the bickering and the jokes and the laughter.

This was life. This was what she was aiming for with her people back in her universe. This was living, not just surviving.

This is the kind of life she wanted, where there was no war and everyone was alive and happy, where the only thing they had to worry about were the zombies outside the walls.

She wanted a life like this.

It was about three months into her stay in the zombie universe when John came to her.

“I found a lead,” he said.

He was telling her about it, about what they’d have to do to get her back, but Clarke was barely listening.

She should’ve been happy, right? She should’ve been excited at the chance to go home, back where she belonged.

But this place. It had zombies, sure, but if you ignored that, it was so much better.

This universe had her mom, safe and on the ground. It had Wells, alive and happy. She wasn’t in charge of anything and the only war they had to worry about was the one against the dead. There was peace.

And there was John.

He was in her universe, too, but this was different. He was different. He was still the Murphy she knew, but at the same time, he was a different person. The way he looked at her was different, and, as much as she tried to pretend otherwise, she liked it.

A few days later, the lead wouldn’t pan out, and Clarke wouldn’t feel as disappointed as she should.

Clarke didn’t leave the safe zone much. She didn’t want to, for one, and everyone was being overly cautious around her while her head healed and her memories returned.

It just went to show with the rotten luck she had that the first time she ventured out they’d run into a swarm of zombies.

Having a gun in her hand again felt weird and wrong, like she’d unadjusted to the life she’d been living for years. The killing didn’t feel as bad, since these people were already dead.

Raven whooped as the last zombie fell, resting her gun on her shoulder. Bellamy muttered something about a mess on his car, and Octavia punched him. Clarke returned John’s wide grin as he swung his bat around, leaning his weight on it.

And then her world came crashing down when she spotted Wells, shirt torn open and bleeding from a large bite in his neck.

“I can save him,” she yelled, scrambling towards him. “I can fix him!”

“You can’t.” John grabbed her arm, stopping her from running. “Clarke, he’s dead.”

“No,” she snapped, tugging against him, but he’d dropped his bat, both arms wrapped around her and holding her against him. “No! He’s not supposed to die!”

She screamed as he held her back, screamed as Wells told them everything he wanted them to know, as he told them to tell his dad he loved him.

A part of her whispered that maybe things were meant to happen in every universe, that maybe Wells was supposed to die. But she didn’t listen to it. She just continued to scream and plead.

She screamed as Octavia cocked the gun, pleaded with John when he turned her away, screamed harder when the gunshot sounded.

There were moments when she forgot this wasn’t real. There were times when she forgot she was Clarke Griffin of the Ark, leader of Skaikru and medic of the 100. Sometimes it seemed that Clarke Griffin of the Arkadian safe zone, killer of zombies and girlfriend of John Murphy, was all she’d ever been.

She’d forget it wasn’t real when he’d wrap an arm around her at dinner with their friends and she’d snuggle into his side. She’d forget it wasn’t real when her mom asked her how everything was going, or when Harper told her about a rumour she’d heard that John had been looking around for engagement rings a few months back, and wouldn’t it be exciting if he proposed soon?

He forgot sometimes, too. Usually late at night or early in the morning, when he was too tired to think properly. Those kisses, soft and sleepy, tucked in the warmth of their bed in their dark apartment, those were more real than anything they’d done in front of their friends and families to keep up the ruse.

She’d forget, but she’d always remember, and so would he. They’d remember that she wasn’t the Clarke he loved, that she didn’t belong here, in this universe, that she had to go home and would be leaving him soon.

Clarke sometimes wished she wouldn’t remember. Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt so much to remind herself that John would never love her, not like he’d loved his Clarke. 

Not the way she loved him.

Kissing him wasn’t exactly something she’d decided to do. There was no one else around and she wasn’t half asleep, so there was really no excuse.

But he’d made her dinner. It was a new recipe he’d found, one he was excited to try, and he looked so eager, so beautiful, so wonderful, she couldn’t help it.

He kissed her back, and she melted against him, his hands digging into her hair and hers winding around her neck.

And then reality hit her and she pulled back, covering her mouth and turning away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, willing herself not to cry. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

John stepped closer, moving until he was close enough that she could feel him even though he wasn’t touching her. “Why not?” he asked, almost pleading with her.

Clarke shook her head, gripping at her arms. “You’re in love with _her_ ,” she whispered. “Not me.”

He moved around her then, and she didn’t have enough self control to stop him from lifting her chin.

“I love you, Clarke,” he told her, offering her a soft smile.

She wanted to just believe him, let his words wash over her and drown in them, but she couldn’t.

“I’m not her,” she told him. “I’ll never be her.”

“I know.” John’s smile turned a little sad. “I love her and I always will, but I love _you_ , too, Clarke. This you. All of you.”

She let him kiss her then, soft and slow and everything she’d been craving.

It was over too soon as he pulled back, pressing their foreheads together. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered, and caught a glimpse of his blinding grin before he kissed her again.

“Something’s different,” Jasper said, frowning at them as they joined the group for lunch the next day. “Are the rumours true, John? Did you finally—”

Jasper cut himself off with a grunt of pain as John punched him in the arm.

“What the fuck?” he gasped, rubbing at his arm with an offended look on his face.

“You’ll live,” John told him, returning to his sandwich. “And maybe you’ll learn to mind your own business.”

Clarke snorted as Jasper’s attention turned to the rest of their friends, trying to convince them to take his side, and leaned her chin on John’s shoulder.

“I love you,” she told him, and he turned his head to grin at her.

“I love you,” he returned, and she couldn’t not kiss him.

Maybe it was a little too much for a kiss at a picnic table with their friends, if the grapes that were thrown at them was any indication, but Clarke was too in love and too happy to really care.

Clarke leaned on her elbow, her free hands tracing lines up and down his arm. He was asleep, peaceful, and she couldn’t stop herself from staying awake a little longer, just watching him.

He slept with his mouth open, drool dangling from the corner, and snored louder than anyone she’d ever heard. He was too warm but insisted on sleeping under all the blankets they owned, and she’d end up sweating halfway through the night once he’d managed to wrap himself around her.

But the crease in his forehead was gone and he looked so soft and happy and sometimes he’d press kisses against her while he slept, and _fuck_ she was so in love with him.

His breathing caught in a snort and then he was blinking awake, staring at her bleary eyed through the darkness.

“Can’t sleep?” he whispered, voice rough and groggy.

She smiled at him, moving her fingers to brush over his cheek, across his jaw, over his lips.

“I love you,” she told him, and felt his grin against her fingers.

“I love you, too,” he said, and then he was rolling over her, bracing his forearms against the bed as he leaned down and kissed her.

Even if Clarke had been able to sleep in the first place, she would’ve let John keep her awake with his kisses and his touch, and she melted into him.

The next morning, she brushed her fingers over his heart and whispered three little words against his skin that would change everything.

“I found something.”

They were stalling. They hadn’t found anything else, and even this was more a thought that Clarke had than something she’d actually found. If this didn’t work, that was it. She was here forever, and, honestly, she’d be okay with that.

If this did work…

So they were stalling. They were finding every excuse they could to put it off, to not leave the Arkadian. There were days where they barely left there bed, others where John dragged her around to every spot in the safe zone she might want to see.

Every night, he whispered the same thing.

“Don’t go.”

And she’d respond the same way.

“I have to. They need me. I need to try to get back.”

And he’d say, “ _I_ need you. Don’t leave me.”

And she could never respond to that, so she’d kiss him instead, and they’d ignore the elephant for another day.

"What're you gonna tell them?" she asked one night, fingers brushing over him as she tried to memorize every last bit of him. "After I'm gone?"

He sighed, held her tighter. "The truth," he whispered. "You got bit and now you're gone."

She closed her eyes and pressed a kiss against his skin. "I'm sorry, John."

It was the same cliff. It was more of a steep hill, really. They were at the top this time rather than the bottom, but they were back where they met.

Clarke wasn’t sure she’d be able to throw herself down it, but she had to.

John was quiet. He was never quiet, but he was now.

She stopped staring down the hill and turned to look at him, brushing her fingers over his face and up into his hair. She kissed him, hard, and he clung to her as he kissed her back.

It’d taken them a month to get to this point, a month of holding onto each other and preparing for the chance that this worked, that this was the last they’d see of each other.

“I don’t want to leave you, John,” she whispered when she pulled back, pressing her forehead to him as their tears mixed on their cheeks.

His arms tightened around her. “Then don’t,” he pleaded, like he had so many times in the last month. “Stay here. Stay with me.”

Clarke shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered. It was true, as much as she wished it wasn’t. “The people at the Dropship, they’re counting on me. I can’t just abandon them.”

“I don’t want to lose you again, Clarke.”

There it was. The unspoken truth lying between them. Clarke would be losing John, but he would be losing her for the second time. He’d have to mourn her again, and this time it would be her choice.

“I have to go,” she told him, and he nodded.

“I know.”

She knew he did. He didn’t like it, but he knew how much she needed to go home, back to where she belonged. She didn’t like it either, but she’d hate herself if she didn’t at least try.

She had to try.

“I’m gonna miss you,” she whispered a while later, face pressed into his chest. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to go back to a life without him.

His hand stroked her hair. “I’ll be there, Clarke,” he told her, and she wasn’t sure when this turned into him comforting her instead of the other way around. “There’s another me there.”

Clarke shook her head, gripping him tighter. “But he’s not _you_.”

“He can be,” John whispered, almost desperately. “I know he can be. Give him a chance.”

“I don’t want to give him a chance.” Clarke pulled back, frowning up at him. “I just want you.”

John kissed her again and she clung to him as she returned it, desperate and watery and full of the future they’d never have if this worked.

She wasn’t sure how much longer they stood there, making this moment last as long as it could.

But they couldn’t stay there forever, so, with one last lingering kiss, Clarke pulled away.

“I love you, John,” she told him, the words breaking on a sob. “I’ll always love you.”

“I love you,” he whispered back. “Forever.”

She watched him for a moment longer, and then took a deep breath and stepped on the edge of the hill, the part that broke off last time, and let herself fall, not knowing whether she was hoping to land here or somewhere else.

Murphy swore under his breath at the sound of someone thumping just through the woods. Probably one of the newbies from the Ark. Couldn’t they figure out they were supposed to be quiet?

He sighed and shifted his gun, stalking towards the sound. At least he’d be able to yell at whoever it was for scaring off any game. Yelling wouldn’t help with the game, of course, but he’d enjoy it, at least.

By the time he rounded the last tree before a clearing, the sound had long since stopped. Maybe they’d given up. Maybe they’d learned to be quiet.

Or, he realized, freezing just outside the treeline, maybe the sound hadn’t actually been from someone thumping through the woods like a giant man eating gorilla.

Maybe it’d been from this person falling down a cliff.

He glanced over his shoulder at the woods. If he left now, no one would know he’d even been here. It’d been years since Charlotte, but he wasn’t about to get blamed for sending someone else off a cliff.

And, if this person was still alive, as he could now tell by the groan she let out, he wouldn’t have to deal with whatever injuries she had.

But then her groan turned into a sob, and he was sighing and crossing the clearing towards her before he could talk himself out of it.

“Are you o—oh.” He cut himself off as he moved into a position where he could see her face. “Holy shit.”

It’d been almost a year since she’d disappeared, but the woman lying on the grass, red seeping into her hair and tears streaming down her face, was undeniably Clarke fucking Griffin.

She was missing, officially. Presumed dead was added on, unless you were in hearing distance of her mom or Bellamy.

But now she was here, spending her time falling down cliffs, apparently.

“Holy fucking shit,” he repeated, a little louder, and her eyes snapped open. “Where the fuck have you been?”

She was looking at him, her lips shaking as she tried and failed to stretch them into a smile.

“John,” she whispered, and then grimaced as she reached a hand towards her head. Her fingers came away covered in the blood that was soaking into her hair. “Fuck. Not again.”

There were so many unanswered questions, but Murphy wouldn’t be getting any answers—or the bragging rights of being the one to finally bring Clarke fucking Griffin back to camp—if he let her bleed out on the forest floor, so he sighed and dropped down next to her, letting his gun fall to the grass beside him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, hands hovering awkwardly in front of him, unsure of where to put them. He didn’t deal with wounded people. He was pretty sure anyone injured didn’t want him around. It was pressure, right? But she also probably had a concussion or something. Was pressure bad for that? Was that a thing he’d heard?

She tried to smile again, her eyes darting over his face.

“Yeah,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

He frowned at her, glanced at the forest in the direction of the Dropship. It was maybe a half hour walk back to camp. Could she make that?

“Are you sure?” he asked, glancing back at her again. “You don’t look or sound okay.”

“I’m sure.” Clarke smiled at him. It was better this time, less shaky, but it was watery and broken and didn’t do anything to convince him of her words.

“Okay,” he said slowly, and held out a hand. “Sit up. Let me take a look at your head.”

She stared at his hand for long enough that Murphy started trying to think of a new strategy, wondering if anyone was within shouting distance. He didn’t know how to deal with Clarke reappearing concussed and bleeding and apparently confused enough to not know what to do with his hand.

He started to retract it, but then her hand shot out and she grabbed onto it so quickly it was like she thought he might disappear.

The moment her skin touched his, visions shot through his mind. Holding her hand to spin her as they danced, her smile as she laughed. Tugging her close against him so he could kiss her. Her tugging him along, giddiness and love bubbling in his chest as she pulled him to wherever they were going.

He jerked out of her hold, leaving her swaying as she steadied herself and finished sitting up on her own, and just stared at her as she stared back.

The way she was looking at him made no sense, except for the fact that it did. The way she was looking at him was the same way she’d looked at him in those memories that were still circling in his brain—because they were vivid, so vivid, and they felt more like memories he shouldn’t have than some fantasy his mind had concocted—albeit with more grief and sadness.

He wanted to hold her, touch her, pull her close. He wanted more of these memories, the feeling of being loved and wanted that came with them.

It made no sense.

He brushed them aside, ducked his head to avoid her gaze, and shifted so he could find the source of her bleeding.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked her as his fingers brushed through her hair, trying to distract himself from the thoughts and feelings that touching her sent shooting through him. “What’ve you been doing?”

Clarke hummed, picking absently at the grass. “I fell in love,” she whispered, and a pang went through him, a weird mix of jealousy and pride that he couldn’t understand. “But he’s gone now. Or I’m gone now, I guess.”

The cut wasn’t as bad as Murphy feared, and he pulled away, sighing as the memories simmered down. Clarke wasn’t making a ton of sense, but she was probably concussed so he could forgive her.

“I think you’ll live,” he told her, offering her a grin. Her returning smile was small and weak. “Who knows. Maybe you’ll get back to that lover of yours after all.”

Clarke’s face fell and she glanced away. “I can’t,” she whispered, and didn’t elaborate.

Murphy sighed and pushed back to his feet, offering her a hand again and bracing himself for another onslaught of whatever the fuck was going on.

“You’re good enough to walk, then,” he told her. “Dropship’s pretty close. Someone else can take a better look at your head when we get there.”

She took his hand, and he quickly pulled her to her feet, letting go of her as soon as he could.

She wobbled a little, and he frowned at her.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

She turned back around, smiling softly at him, tears welling in her eyes again. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “I promise.”

He still wasn’t convinced, but then she was stepping towards him, leaning even closer, and for one crazy second he thought she was going to kiss him. She did, but it was on the cheek, which was both more and less weird.

“Thank you, John.”

He didn’t have a chance to dwell on how weird hearing his first name was or how weird in general Clarke was being, because the touch of her lips came with even more of the strange almost-memories, hitting him even stronger than before. Kissing her. Wrapping her up in his arms and burying his face in her hair. Trailing kisses down her neck, across her jaw, over her cheeks. Loving her, loving her more than he’d ever loved anyone.

She pulled away after barely a moment, and every part of him was screaming at him to pull her back, kiss her for real, hold her tight and never let go. He was pretty sure it was only the confusion that kept him in check, that reminded him that even though whatever the fuck this was seemed like memories, it wasn’t real.

“For what?” he asked her once he could speak again. She was still staring at him, and he was still trying to convince himself that kissing her would be a bad idea.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged, offered him a smile. It was still watery, still a little broken, but it was closer to a real one than she’d gotten so far. “Finding me, I guess.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, because it sounded like she was thanking him for so much more than just this, so he didn’t say anything.

“Which way to camp?” Clarke asked, breaking their staring contest and turning around, already walking in the right direction. He stooped to pick up his gun and then hurried after her.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you shouldn’t be leading,” he told her, jostling past her as they headed into the trees.

He’d get her checked with medical and make sure she was okay. He’d make sure everyone knew it was him who brought her home—he’d probably get, what? First dibs on food for a month? No work duty? All the best new furs? Something great, at least.

But he’d make sure she was okay.

And then he was getting some answers.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I have ideas for a sequel, so be sure to bookmark this if you want to know if/when that happens. Can't guarantee it'll be anytime soon cause I'm swamped with stuff irl, but a bit of it is written, so you never know!
> 
> Be sure to check out the rest of the Chopped fics and cast your vote!
> 
> Comments give me life so please leave me all your thoughts!


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